IMPLEMENTATION OF BUSINESS EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN AN ERA OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY IN NIGERIA

The study investigated institutional collaboration and quality implementation of business education programme in an era of economic uncertainty in Nigeria. The study was guided by two hypotheses. The population comprised 47 business educators from two public universities in Cross River State: University of Calabar (UNICAL) and University of Cross River State (UNICROSS). Census technique was used since the number was considered manageable. A researcher made instrument titled “Institutional Collaboration and Quality Implementation of Business Education Programme in an Era of Economic Uncertainty Questionnaire” (ICQIBEPEEUQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was face and content validated by three experts, two from Business Education and one from Measurement and Evaluation units from the surveyed universities. To ascertain the internal consistency of the instrument, a reliability estimate of .77 was achieved for the instrument using Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient after a pilot study. Of the 47 questionnaires administered, 95.74% representing 45 copies were retrieved and used in the analysis. Simple linear regression statistical technique was used in testing the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Findings revealed among others that collaboration through lecturers’ exchange programme significantly predict quality implementation of business education programme in an era of economic uncertainty. Based on this, it was recommended among others that institutions of higher learning especially the universities should be encouraged to have a strong inter-institutional synergy between and among themselves where lecturers from one university can go to another university other than theirs to teach and/or carryout collaborative research concerning any particular issue of concern. By so doing, valued experiences would have been harnessed and appropriated by those institutions who may not have the capacity of employing renowned scholars.